


Learning the Law

by orphan_account



Category: due South
Genre: BDSM, Established Relationship, F/M, Law Enforcement, Podfic Available
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-04
Updated: 2012-01-04
Packaged: 2017-10-28 22:04:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/312649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scene from a marriage.  Stella helps Ray learn something all US peace officers should know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Learning the Law

**Author's Note:**

> See the end of the work for a link to a terrific podfic, which is part of a "Ray K/Stella Marriage Podfic Triptych" which includes two other stories about Ray and Stella Kowalski by other authors.

It’s words, only fifty-seven of them, but they are words that he has to memorize.  And while Ray mixes up words all the time, he can usually get his point across just the same, but the Miranda Warning, that’s about procedure and has to be precise.

Stella tells him this, gives him cautionary tales about perps who walked because of faulty or outright absent Miranda Warnings.  “A lot of people think peace officers have to recite Miranda upon arrest,” she tells him, all correct and procedural and professorial and haughty, which, to Ray, all adds up to _Jesus Fucking Christ this is hot_ at least it does when Stella’s explaining it.  “But, really, it technically only has to happen sometime before official questioning.  Peace officers,” and, Christ, that will always get him, that she calls cops “peace officers” even though she’s mere months away from marrying one, “usually give the Miranda Warning immediately upon arrest because in the interval between arrest and questioning, shit happens.”  And Ray laughs, because Stella, _his_ Stella, hasn’t lost her sense of humor even through the concurrent grind of law school and Ray’s own police training.

But Ray really is having a hell of time memorizing the stupid Miranda Warning.  If he wanted a script, he’d be a fucking actor, and that is precisely what he is not (although, to be honest, some days he wishes like hell he had a script for dealing with instructors, with in-laws and even, God forgive him, dealing with _Stella_ ).

But Stella really is awesome, because she tells him they’re taking the weekend off, going to her parents’ place in Door County, that weird little rich, privileged spit of Wisconsin that juts up into Lake Michigan, separating it from Green Bay.

 “Like the Packers,” Ray teases Stella and she puts on a very thoughtful face and says, “Precisely so, Ray, like the Packers, Vince Lombardi loved Door County only slightly more than he loved the Packers and only slightly less than he loved winning.”  And they giggle like maniacs.

And when they get to her parents’ place in Door County, a place with a great view of the Bay, but still a rather modest place, by the standards Ray’s always assuming go with Stella and her parents, Stella reveals her nefarious plan to make Ray learn the Miranda warning.

“It’s fifty-seven words, Ray,” she tells him.  “Fifty-seven words that can stand between a conviction and a walk.”  And the implication that if he screws up his job on this, it will screw up her job, and consequently fail the system they are both struggling so hard to believe in, makes him take this whole thing that much more seriously.

But before Stella reveals her plan for helping him learn those crucial fifty-seven words, but after they’ve settled and unpacked and strolled around a bit, Stella gives him a beautifully wrapped box.  Ray loves presents, who doesn’t, and he opens it to find a calfskin belt, black, Ralph Lauren and he knows some poor cow gave up her baby so Stella could give him this belt, but it feels and smells so good that he can’t stop touching it, _fondling_ it, and _fuck_ that cow.

But Stella won’t let him keep it.  “You have to earn this belt,” she tells him.  And she’s trying to be mean, and he loves her when she’s like this, because sometimes her _attempts_ to be mean result in something approaching _actual_ meanness, and for some reason that really revs him up.

And it turns out that he has to earn it by reciting the Miranda Warning.  And Stella, who is clearly an evil genius, makes him take off his clothes before she’ll even let him start to try to recite the Warning.  So he’s standing in front of her, wearing nothing at all, and she’s wearing her interview suit, the belt doubled up in her hands, and she’s snapping the two halves together at apparently random intervals, and just that, his nudity, no, _nakedness_ and Stella with the belt is already making him hard.

“Say it, Ray,” she orders him, and he starts in.  “You have the right to remain silent,” he says, and that part is easy.  “You have the right to an attorney,” and that is wrong, Stella frowns and tells him to bend over, and he does.  “That’s seven words in the wrong place,” Stella tells him, and whap-whap-whap-whap-whap-whap-whap, that’s seven strokes of that beautiful belt across his ass and how did he ever think that motherfucker was _soft_?  And why isn’t he himself soft, because being strapped like this should mean game over, but the pain is brightly beautiful, coming from Stella like this, making him harder, making him love her more.

Stella lets him up, lets him look at the text of the Warning again, his ass stinging.  And he sees the error; he’d skipped right over the “anything you say” part.  He nods at Stella, and bends back over.

“You have the right to remain silent,” he recites confidently.  “Anything you say can be held against you in a court of law.”

And, fuck, the belt is across his ass again.  “What?” Ray yelps at the two sharp blows, even though his cock likes them just fine, Ray himself is indignant because he really is trying here.  And Stella lets him up again, points at the text.  Fuck.  Actions are, after all, just as important as words.  Ray bends back down again.

“You have the right to remain silent.  Anything you say _or do_ can be held against you in a court of law.”  And damnit, two more swats from the belt and another reprieve so he can read the text.

“You have the right to remain silent.  Anything you say or do can _and will_ be held against you in a court of law,” Ray manages, and that, at long last, gets him a reward, a kiss to the temple and the belt soothed over his back instead of snapping at his ass.

“You have the right to an attorney,” Ray continues and Goddamnit, two more swats and it’s back to the text.  By now Ray’s got the first part down cold, and he rushes right through it to get to what he’s now, Jesus Christ, thinking of as _the good part_ , that is to say the part he most recently fucked up but now knows he can recite perfectly.  “You have the right to _speak to_ an attorney.  If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to you,” and of course he’s got the part where the law protects people who are broke down cold.  He gets another temple kiss, another smooth glide of the calfskin belt over his skin.

“Last part,” Stella promises him, and Ray automatically gets into position and again rushes through until the end: “Do you understand these rights as they have been read to you?” and Stella’s pulling him up, putting his mouth on hers, kissing him with rough passion because he finally got all fifty-seven words right.

And she makes him say those fifty-seven words over and over again that weekend, in between romantic walks on the shore and barbecue and beers, and he doesn’t always get them right but she’s got the belt, and yeah, sometimes he screws up on purpose and Stella knows that, but when they’re ready to leave, the belt is around his waist, threaded through the loops on his jeans, and he accurately recites the Warning to her three times, and she tells him it’s perfect, _he’s_ perfect, and they go back to Chicago and if anyone but Stella wants that belt, they’ll have to pry it from his cold, dead body.

 

 

Text of the Miranda Warning:

 

You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say or do can and will be held against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you. Do you understand these rights as they have been read to you?

**Author's Note:**

> I originally thought of this story as being about the belt, Kowalski, Fraser, and the Canadian variant of the Riot Act, which is fifty-one words long:
> 
> "Her Majesty the Queen charges and commands all persons being assembled immediately to disperse and peaceably to depart to their habitations or to their lawful business on the pain of being guilty of an offence for which, on conviction, they may be sentenced to imprisonment for life. God Save the Queen."
> 
> It ended up making more sense to me as Belt/Kowalski/Stella and the Miranda Warning.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Learning the Law [PODFIC]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/696337) by [DesireeArmfeldtPodfic (DesireeArmfeldt)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesireeArmfeldt/pseuds/DesireeArmfeldtPodfic)




End file.
